Entitle

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ənˈtaɪtəl/

Definitions

1. To grant someone a legal right or claim to something; to assign a title or name to something
2. To confer eligibility or authority on a person to receive or do something; to designate a name or heading for an item
3. To authorize or empower a person with a particular privilege or benefit; to give a title that identifies or describes

Etymology: Latin "titulus" meant an inscription or label, the sort of tag fixed to a statue or a tomb to say who or what it was. Late Latin turned that into "intitulare," to put a title on something, and Old French carried it forward as "intituler," which is still the ordinary French word for titling a book or a work of art. English borrowed the idea through Anglo-Norman "entitler," so the verb has always carried the sense of formally naming something. That naming sense is where the legal meaning comes from. To entitle someone is to give them a name on a document, and by extension a claim or right that the document recognises. A title in the older sense was a label that conferred status, so once you had been formally labelled as an heir or a householder, you were entitled to what came with that label. The legal sense and the sense of simply naming something grew from the same root, and the two have stayed side by side in English.

Synonyms: authorize, entitle

Antonyms: disqualify